A Frontrunner to Direct Suicide Squad 2 Has Emerged, and It's Not Mel Gibson

Deadline reports that Collet-Serra has emerged as the leading candidate to direct Suicide Squad 2, the sequel to the polarising 2016 DC Comics hit that starred Will Smith, Margot Robbie, and Jared Leto. There’s no word on who from the original cast would return, but Smith and Robbie are probably locks.

A few months back, Mel Gibson confirmed he had been approached by the studio as one of several candidates to direct the film, but that’s no longer likely.

Collet-Serra last directed The Shallows, the fan-favourite shark movie starring Blake Lively. He’s best known, however, for being in the Liam Neeson business, having directed Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night, and next year’s The Commuter. Genre fans will probably best know him for his earlier films House of Wax and Orphan, or for the fact he almost directed Akira.

So he’s got a lot of experience. Several of those movies were released by Warner Bros., so he already has the studio’s trust. And now, he’s likely to come aboard one of over a dozen Warner Bros. DC films that are currently in various stages of development. Here’s the list from a few months ago. (This has since expanded.)